Samsung SSD and Magician software


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I'm kind of new to SSD drives as far as owning one. I don't mind installing the software on a few machines, but we're actually looking at replacing our existing HDDs with SSDs for about 400 machines. I don't want to install the software on all those, obviously.

I understand how over-provisioning works and some of the other features. My question is would it be OK for the most part if I DIDN'T install the software and didn't do any other tweaks?

We are imaging them from scratch, so I'm not concerned there. I am also not concerned about maximum performance. They perform well enough from my testing. I don't need to get 10 years out of the drives, but 4-5 would be good. We're running 3.0Ghz Core 2 Duos, and would prefer not to buy new machines, so we're adding RAM and the SSDs.

Any input? Thanks

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Install software? You mean the OS? You can easily do a auto install...

Unless you mean the firmware? If you get any SSD, get the 840 pro edition.

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I have an 830. The Magician software really just does 3 things:

  • Provides a "health" check/view
  • Allows firmware updating
  • Utility functions - like secure erase, optimizing Windows settings for the SSD (like turning off defrag, etc.)

More than likely, your average user won't need access to any of this information/functionality (nor do you want them to have access to it).

I installed my 830 without the Magician software (it's not necessary) and only ended up installing it when I needed to do a firmware update.

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although you may want to use it to optimize windows and then uninstall, as the settings it changes increases the life of the SSD

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Windows 7 and anything newer will automatically optimise itself for SSD usage, you don't need additional software to do it. The assertion that you should turn prefetching and superfectch off on an SSD is also false, it does not infer any performance benefits to do that.

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I use SSD Fresh instead of samsung magician on a Samsung 830 SSD, you need to tweak some stuff, like indexing, defrag and stuff, so you can get the best lifetime, performance and reliability on the SSD

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I haven't used it since Windows 8's public release (as to my knowledge, it still isn't supported).

Nice to know it exists but unless you have a use for over provisioning (e.g. NAS / Server cache disk) it's not needed.

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Guess I never heard of this software... Oh well.

(Yeah, and I have a 830)

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i'm skeptical of any optimization that tells you to disable indexing. that's been debunked years ago. plus, all the rest that's known to work isn't necessary anyways because Win8 already does it natively. firmware updates can be done with bootable ISOs. Not only did I not install the Magician software, I also decided not to install the Intel SSD Toolbox when reinstalling myother computer either. It's not necessary.

I haven't used it since Windows 8's public release (as to my knowledge, it still isn't supported).

Nice to know it exists but unless you have a use for over provisioning (e.g. NAS / Server cache disk) it's not needed.

it's supported now.

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I haven't used it since Windows 8's public release (as to my knowledge, it still isn't supported).

Version 4.0 now supports Windows 8.

But to answer the OP's question, no you don't need to install the software, however it is a good idea in case of firmware updates for the future. I'd disable it running on startup though as it gulps 40mb+ of ram for no real reason.

Apart from that the tweaking options are not required (or recommended) for Windows 7 or later.

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Like it's been said here, you won't need Magician other than firmware updates and some "tweeks" it can make (i said "tweeks" because i've benchmarked my 830 SSD and it gained a little performance increase with Magician). Also you can also clone your existing OS to a SSD, it will be fine (and if it's a modern OS it will detect the SSD with no problem what so ever), the performance increase is huge when comparing to a HDD.

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I'm kind of new to SSD drives as far as owning one. I don't mind installing the software on a few machines, but we're actually looking at replacing our existing HDDs with SSDs for about 400 machines. I don't want to install the software on all those, obviously.

I understand how over-provisioning works and some of the other features. My question is would it be OK for the most part if I DIDN'T install the software and didn't do any other tweaks?

We are imaging them from scratch, so I'm not concerned there. I am also not concerned about maximum performance. They perform well enough from my testing. I don't need to get 10 years out of the drives, but 4-5 would be good. We're running 3.0Ghz Core 2 Duos, and would prefer not to buy new machines, so we're adding RAM and the SSDs.

Any input? Thanks

First let me say I have the magician software and an 840 pro and both are best in class IMO. The software is excellent. The main reason you would want the software, which can be easily installed later, is for firmware upgrades. The 840 is pretty solid and there hasn't been a firmware upgrade since I got it which is good.

There's performance optimization and OS optimization which you can install on your base machine, do the optimizations, then uninstall and image. It's stuff like making sure indexing is off, disabling prefetch. There are some I don't agree with like enabling hibernation on desktops. So you probably want to do this manually anyway.

Since Windows 7 & 8 have TRIM support you won't need the performance optimization.

As long as you image with the spare partition for over provisioning created, which I recommend, you can install and OP after the image. I don't see why you couldn't image an SSD configured for OP already, but I really can't say one way or the other. Since the software configures the controller to use it, it's hard to say. The software is light so installing it isn't much of a problem. I'm not sure if it's portable or not, might run from a USB, I haven't tried. Good choice on SSD :D

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First let me say I have the magician software and an 840 pro and both are best in class IMO. The software is excellent. The main reason you would want the software, which can be easily installed later, is for firmware upgrades. The 840 is pretty solid and there hasn't been a firmware upgrade since I got it which is good.

There's performance optimization and OS optimization which you can install on your base machine, do the optimizations, then uninstall and image. It's stuff like making sure indexing is off, disabling prefetch. There are some I don't agree with like enabling hibernation on desktops. So you probably want to do this manually anyway.

Since Windows 7 & 8 have TRIM support you won't need the performance optimization.

As long as you image with the spare partition for over provisioning created, which I recommend, you can install and OP after the image. I don't see why you couldn't image an SSD configured for OP already, but I really can't say one way or the other. Since the software configures the controller to use it, it's hard to say. The software is light so installing it isn't much of a problem. I'm not sure if it's portable or not, might run from a USB, I haven't tried. Good choice on SSD :D

Did you read anything than the OP's question? You don't need it.

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I haven't used it since Windows 8's public release (as to my knowledge, it still isn't supported).

Nice to know it exists but unless you have a use for over provisioning (e.g. NAS / Server cache disk) it's not needed.

It is, I run an 840 and installed the software

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You could make a master image (where you first install SSD Magician and make the tweaks and updates the firmware, and then uninstall the SSD Magician software) before imaging it to the other SSD's. Or you can make the tweaks yourself manually of course.

If you later on for some reason want's to update the firmware on the master image (or all your machines), Samsung has a firmware update tool that runs from a bootable CD or USB drive.

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Did you read anything than the OP's question? You don't need it.

Of course I read it. he didn't ask if he needed it. He asked if it would be OK if he didn't install it or perform any of the tweaks. I decided to give a more thorough response than "you don't need it."

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Sorry I didn't respond earlier, but have been super busy.

Thanks for ALL the information guys. The reason I don't want install is that with our imaging software, it creates the image, then runs SYSPREP without any intervention. That image is then pushed out. I install everything afterwards. I "could" figure out a way to run the installer, I'm sure, but didn't want to bother if I didn't have to. It's good to know that I don't need it unless I want the extra functions.

We got the regular 840, but might look at the Pro version. I thought the Pro just had faster writes, mainly, but a guy I talked to said it used a few different parts that made them last longer.

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Sorry I didn't respond earlier, but have been super busy.

Thanks for ALL the information guys. The reason I don't want install is that with our imaging software, it creates the image, then runs SYSPREP without any intervention. That image is then pushed out. I install everything afterwards. I "could" figure out a way to run the installer, I'm sure, but didn't want to bother if I didn't have to. It's good to know that I don't need it unless I want the extra functions.

We got the regular 840, but might look at the Pro version. I thought the Pro just had faster writes, mainly, but a guy I talked to said it used a few different parts that made them last longer.

the pro version uses MLC while the regular uses TLC

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  • 1 year later...
 
 

 

I have an 830. The Magician software really just does 3 things:

  • Provides a "health" check/view
  • Allows firmware updating
  • Utility functions - like secure erase, optimizing Windows settings for the SSD (like turning off defrag, etc.)
More than likely, your average user won't need access to any of this information/functionality (nor do you want them to have access to it).

I installed my 830 without the Magician software (it's not necessary) and only ended up installing it when I needed to do a firmware update.

 

it optimaze ssd , pushing trim activity

 

but i had a problem uninstalling it

 

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I don't think foregoing firmware upgrading is a good idea. Can you only update the firmware through Magician?

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I don't think foregoing firmware upgrading is a good idea. Can you only update the firmware through Magician?

I would typically agree, but we have about 80 machines with SSDs now, and will have about 200-300 more in the next week. I can't see our users upgrading the firmware anyway.

I don't know about only upgrading through the software. It's by far the easiest, though.

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